HEIDELBERG, GERMANY—February 26, 2015—Fewer print jobs and rising costs were making life difficult for U.S. commercial print shop Cohber Press in Rochester, NY, with its 82-strong workforce and sales of US$ 14 million. Around a year ago, the management team therefore decided to try Performance Plus, the partnership-based consulting concept from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) that aims to make print shops more cost-effective using lean management methods. The company is now seeing impressive initial results. "Performance Plus has significantly boosted our capacities, based on the same equipment and headcount, and sales have risen by 25 percent," said Cohber CEO and Owner Eric Webber. In the space of a single year, Cohber has succeeded in improving its overall productivity by an average of 42 percent and creating around 1,800 hours of additional machine capacity. The company has also achieved savings totaling U.S.$ 115,000.

Clear goals and stringent measures deliver success
At the start of the project, Heidelberg consulting experts worked with the customer to define clear project goals. The overall aim was to improve the company’s productivity by over 40 percent within one year. The main focus was to be the performance of Cohber’s Speedmaster XL 105.

Pressroom processes were also to be standardized and potential savings in operating costs identified. Cohber and Heidelberg agreed on a project plan based on these objectives. Various training measures were to be used to improve employees’ process know-how and quality awareness in the pressroom.

The Speedmaster XL 105 was to benefit from a Systemservice agreement that would make it possible to plan and lower operating costs. Project progress was then to be measured and documented using a systematic monthly evaluation that would identify possible readjustments. The Heidelberg consulting experts were to closely monitor all these measures. Cohber COO Dan Mahany summarized the results by saying, "Performance Plus has significantly improved our processes and facilitated pressroom planning. Despite clocking up less overtime, we’re now much better at meeting our delivery deadlines. That’s incredibly important for our competitiveness."

This success has resulted in Cohber extending the program by a further year to open up additional potential for improvement, above all in the print shop’s prepress operations.

"All the Performance Plus projects to date show that the program is a vital factor in improving print shops’ competitiveness," explained Bernhard Steinel, head of the Systemservice business area at Heidelberg. "The fact that it’s a performance-related service product, with the customer and Heidelberg sharing the profits as partners, further reinforces the trust customers place in us."

Heidelberg underlines potential of holistic service approach
with Performance Plus.
Performance Plus always aims to improve a company’s overall performance and therefore covers all processes. In the customer projects evaluated to date, performance has improved by between 20 and 40 percent. The interplay between personnel, processes, equipment, and consumables is always a key success factor. "We’re confident that products like Performance Plus will transform the status and level of acceptance of service programs in our industry," concluded Steinel.

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